


Out of the Black

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who, Firefly
Genre: Crossover, Dimension hopping!Rose, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Rose makes an unexpected pit-stop on her way across the universe to find the Doctor.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Timepetalsprompts](http://timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com) weekly drabble theme. The theme was 'serenity', and with a theme like that, how could I not do this?

Rose tumbles out of the slipstream between dimensions and lands on her hands and knees. The metal floor bites into her skin where it presses against her palms. The wail of a shipboard alarm rings in her ears. **  
**

“Intruder. Alert.” The metallic voice of the ship’s computer bleats over the din of the alarm. Rose looks up when the business end of a blaster crosses her eye line.

“What,” asks the owner of the blaster, “are you doin’ on my ship?” The man in question is tallish and possessed of the kind of rakish good looks that Rose associates with space (and time) travelling cowboys. She wonders briefly if he’s a Time Agent.

“Jus’ passin’ through,” Rose slurs. _Oh_ , she thinks, as her vision swims, _that last jump was one too many._ The floor rushes up to meet her.

She wakes up under the harsh glare of medbay lights, and blinks to bring the blurry face leaning over her into focus. He has dark eyes, dark hair and, Rose thinks, as it stretches across his mouth, the sort of smile that probably leaves women in heaps behind him.

“Where’m I?” Rose rasps, and the man disappears out of her field of vision. Rose turns her head to track him and takes in the medbay. It’s sparse, but everything is clean and tidy, and the man bustles about with efficiency, so Rose decides he knows what he’s about.

“Welcome to Serenity,” he says, returning to her bedside. “I’m Simon.”

Simon hands her a cup of water, and loops his arm around her shoulders to help her sit up. The water is cool and Rose sucks it down greedily. Simon takes the empty cup from her hands.

“What’s your name?”

Rose clears her throat. “I’m –” she hesitates and Simon waits. She is saved from answering by the arrival of someone else - the man with the blaster from earlier. Flanking him are, what Rose assumes, a pair of his crew. Rose sees the same kind of battle-hardened flint in the woman’s eyes that she sees in her own mirror in the morning and the man’s lip curls into a sneer as she takes him in.

“Glad to see you’ve woken,” the blaster wielder says, though his tone seems to indicate he’d rather she’d have remained unconscious. “Since you were saved from the necessity of answering earlier, I’ll ask you again - what are you doin’ on my ship?”

Rose bristles under the tone of his voice. “S’not like I _meant_ to arrive here,” she says, and then; “where is _here_ anyway? And where are my things?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” the man with the blaster retorts. Rose glares at him. The staredown lasts for fifteen long seconds, then all hell breaks loose.

When the dust clears and the shouting (was that Chinese she was hearing?) stops, Rose somehow ends up with a lapful of fuzzy-sweater wearing, dark-haired, girl and everyone else regards them with varying degrees of suspicion.

Simon is the first to shake off the shock and he steps forward. “River,” he says, addressing the girl in Rose’s lap, “c’mon, get down from there.” River ignores Simon and clutches at Rose. Then, she peers up at her. Rose sees something ancient in River’s eyes, something powerful and hungry and a shiver of apprehension skates up her spine.

River turns to Simon, and then the rest of the crew. “She’s the Bad Wolf,” River says, as if that explains everything. Mostly, everyone else just looks more confused. Rose hears the echoing ring of golden chimes in the back of her mind and feels the heady rush of remembered power in her blood. River goes on, twining her fingers in Rose’s shirt, “she holds time and space in the palm of her hand and she left herself a path to follow to get home.”

Rose can’t smother the harsh inhale of breath that accompanies River’s statement. River turns back to her, and Rose is struck by the depth of knowledge that lives inside her eyes. “You’ll get back to him,” she says, with ironclad sincerity. “You will find your Doctor.” Tears prick the backs of Rose’s eyes.

“Are – are you sure?” she asks, voice barely a whisper. River nods, then slides off her lap. From somewhere to Rose’s left, the dimension cannon trills to let her know that it is charged for it’s next jump. Rose blinks and then shakes herself. She slides off the exam table, and her boots hit the floor of the medbay with a confident thud.

"Hey!" the man with the blaster waves it threateningly. Rose ignores him. "What do you think you're doin'?" 

“Like I said,” she says as she locates the pile of rumpled cloth that is her effects. “I was just passing through.” Rose hits the trigger on the cannon and for the first time in months, feels like she has a hope in hell of finding the Doctor. The countdown rings in her mind and she feels the give of space-time around her, the dispersion of herself into atoms and the ringing of golden chimes in her ears.


End file.
